Bruce,

Looking at the petition for amnesty filed for Joseph Kelly he indicates he was a Capt in the standing state militia in St. Louis for 3 years prior to moving himself and his company to Jefferson City per orders of the governor in May of 1861. He ended up as a Colonel acting as an Inspector General for the CSA Dept of the Transmississippi. Of note is that Frank P Blair wrote the endorsement recommending the amnesty be granted for both Col Joseph Kelly CSA and his brother James Kelly, Capt. Mo 11th Cavalry CSA in November 1865. James joined the MSG at the outbreak of the war. Both were residents of St. Louis in 1860. Both are listed as hving considerable wealth listed as greater than $20,000 in 1865 post war so it appears they were in the right place with the financial resources to pull it off. I suspect given the wealth and position Joseph Kelly was known by Blair prior to the war.

Further investigation indicates the following "Captain Joseph Kelly was an Irish immigrant and a grocer in St. Louis. In 1857 he organized the Washington Blues, the city's finest militia unit. It was closely associated with Father Bannon's Catholic Total Abstiience and Benevolence Society. Actually, the Blues helped raise money for Father Bannon to build St. John the Apostle and Evangelist Church, which stands today.

In November 1860, Kelly's men went to western Missouri to repel Kansas invaders and were among the earliest volunteers in Sterling Price's Missouri State Guard. In 1861 they were a regiment in the 6th Division of the Missouri State Guard. They participated in the battles at Carthage, Wilson's Creek, and Lexington. In 1862 they were at the Battle of Pea Ridge. Later, they joined the 5th Missouri (CSA) which fought in Mississippi and the Atlanta campaign.

Kelly didn't accompany Parsons or Shelby to Mexico. Kelly surrendered after the war and took the oath of allegiance in Louisiana in 1865. He returned to St. Louis. His health was ruined by the war, he actually was wounded at Wilson's Creek. He died in May, 1870 in St. Louis." from http://civilwartalk.com/threads/irish-confederates.20216/

This is confirmed by the McNamara's recounting of the Camp Jackson Affair where the Washington Blues were a significant player and he reports Joe Kelly being ordered to Jefferson City with arms and a large amount of gunpowder. It is not clear if this powder was entirely purchased or actually partly removed from the arsenal when under the command of Bell. The reported amount was 70 tons of powder! Per John H Mc Namara "The following morning Capt. Joseph Kelly received orders to proceed to Jefferson City with equipment for the secessionist cause, including about 200 hunting rifles and 70 tons of powder. John McNamara recalled that the “first excitement in camp was a call for volunteers from each company, to go under command of Capt. Joe Kelly - the very head and front of a soldier - for the important purpose of secretly taking and guarding a large supply of ammunition, by steamers from St. Louis to the capital of the State. The enthusiasm of the boys brought out double the number called for, and the judgement of Capt. Joe sent back to camp the worse half of the volunteers - and myself along with them - which I always looked upon as an oversight.” see http://www.nps.gov/jeff/historyculture/upload/camp_jackson.pdf

This page by JEM seems to have answered your question with some clarity as well: http://www.mogenweb.org/cooper/Military/MSGPowder.pdf

The Washington Blues appear to be one of the few early MSG units that had any unit cohesion particularly at Booneville and given their experience in Kansas they would be high on the competency list for such an escort move. More on Kelly's Irish Brigade is here: http://kellysconfederateirishbrigade.com/history.html

A very apropo question for St. Pats Day!

John R